Former Oklahoma and Dallas Cowboys player Tony Casillas was on the Sooners' sideline during the 2013 Cotton Bowl against Texas A&M at Cowboys Stadium. / Kevin Jairaj, USA TODAY Sports

by Chris Strauss, USA TODAY Sports

by Chris Strauss, USA TODAY Sports

Former NFL defensive lineman Tony Casillas scoffed at the "deer antler spray" madness that surrounded Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis during Super Bowl week, telling a Dallas radio show Wednesday that his Cowboys teammates in the 1990s were fond of their own obscure potential enhancement product, a horrific-smelling veterinary ointment known as DMSO.

"When I heard about deer antler spray, I said that's nothing. We used to use this stuff called DMSO. That's what veterinarians put on horses' muscles, and we used it in the locker room. We had a bottle and you'd take it. It goes right to the bloodstream," Casillas told KRLD-FM. "I'm not sure about this deer antler stuff, but it was prevalent in our locker room. It's called DMSO. You get it from the veterinarian. It's an ointment that's like anti-inflammatory. You put it on your skin and you put it on a muscle, and I guarantee you, in about 30 minutes you'd feel great. If you're going to talk about the deer antler stuff, we used DMSO and people knew it. Everyone knew about it."

Casillas is right. DMSO, which is short for dimethyl sulfoxide, wasn't a secret in the 1980s and 1990s, as players openly discussed the medication, which was not approved by major sports leagues at the time but wasn't exactly banned either. The wood byproduct, which is only approved for human use by the FDA as a preservative of organs for transplant and for interstitial cystitis, a bladder disease, was mostly obtained through veterinarians, who used it as an anti-inflammatory on horses and other large animals.

"The new odor, a commingling of the vapors of turpentine, rotten eggs and old oysters, comes from dimethyl sulfoxide, better known as DMSO, the controversial and often illegally used drug hailed by a growing legion of amateur and professional athletes who view it as a panacea for many ills ranging from sprained ankles to tendinitis and ripped muscles."

How University of Oregon long-distance runners obtained DMSO:

"A guy in our neighborhood has a dog with arthritis. Vets prescribe DMSO for it, and we all borrow the dog. He's been to more vets than any dog in America."

Former Oakland Raiders quarterback Daryle Lamonica:

"A lot of us used it - Pete Banaszak, Jim Otto, Ben Davidson, other guys. And the only side effect we ever noticed was body odor and incredibly bad breath. It's a smell you don't forget. I got on an elevator in Washington after testifying and I smelled it. I was so excited I yelled. 'Who's using DMSO around here?" and a guy raised his hand."

The story is worth a read, if only as an example that no matter the era, plenty of athletes are going to seek out whatever ridiculous products they can if they think it will somehow give them a competitive advantage on the field.